The Family We Make

by Dan Wingreen

  *

  As it turned out, fitting in at the center was a lot harder than either Tim or Dick expected.

  After Tim had agreed to volunteer with the older kids, Dick had almost immediately started telling him about the center’s Big Brother program. Tim had heard of similar programs, of course, and really this one wasn’t too different aside from a few less restrictions on what “Big Brothers” were allowed to do with their “Little Brothers,” but he was reluctant to get involved. Helping one kid was great, but Tim had always gravitated toward group activities. They were what he knew and what he was used to. Jumping into one-on-one mentoring was definitely stepping outside his comfort zone, but Dick was so passionate about the program and seemed to have so much confidence in Tim it didn’t take too much convincing for him to sign up.

  The first disaster wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. Tim and the kid—a blond fifteen-year-old boy named Austin—actually hit it off pretty well. Austin played football, and Tim had been on his high school’s basketball team—for one season where he played maybe half a game, but still—so they bonded pretty quickly over sports and trading funny stories about their respective teams over lunch in the center’s cafeteria. Where it all fell apart was when, after an uncomfortably detailed twenty-minute retelling of Austin’s latest cheerleader encounter, he asked Tim about his own history with girls. In hindsight, even if he’d had a history with girls, he probably should have deflected the question, but Tim didn’t really have much experience with teenagers, so the question caught him just enough off guard that he answered honestly.

  “I don’t have any girl stories.”

  “Come on, man, you can tell me. I’m not gonna say nothin’ to anyone.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “You’re telling me you went through four years of high school without ever popping any bitches?”

  Tim didn’t know whether to be amused or horrified. “That’s what I’m saying. And is that how you pick up girls, by the way? By calling them ‘bitches’ and saying you wanna ‘pop’ them?”

  Austin rolled his eyes. “You sound like my mom, dude. Wait, are you one of those male feminists or whatever? Is that why you never got laid? Holy shit, dude. Are you a virgin?”

  Tim had to laugh. “No,” he said wryly. “None of that. I’m just gay.”

  “What the fuck?”

  Even though he spent his life living in pretty liberal cities like New York and Chicago, Tim wasn’t exactly a stranger to homophobic freak-outs. Still, Austin’s was more…enthusiastic than he was used to. Dodging what was left of their lunch, a thrown chair, and falling on his ass as he scrambled away from a teenage boy he outweighed by at least fifty pounds was not one of the high points of Tim’s life. After a few staff members managed to drag Austin away—still screaming obscenities—to calm down in some other part of the building, Dick came rushing up to him to apologize.

  “I am so sorry. I should have told you about Austin’s violent reactions to homosexuals.”

  Tim, who at the time hadn’t been feeling anywhere near as forgiving or understanding as he would be a few hours later, glared at him. “You think?”

  Dick winced. “In all fairness,” he said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture, “I had no way of knowing you were gay. Or that you were going to tell him the first time you met.”

  “You could have asked.”

  “Actually, I couldn’t. Even though you’re a volunteer, I’m still technically your employer. I’m not allowed to ask about your race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.”

  “But you can ask me if I’m here to molest the kids? Because that’s a thousand times more offensive than asking if I’m gay.”

  Dick shrugged. “Welcome to Chicago.”

  It took another twenty minutes for Tim to feel like talking civilly, and in that time, Dick explained a bit about Austin. Apparently, his parents were both textbook neglectful alcoholics, and he’d been raised mostly by his older sister. About a year ago, she’d gotten married to another girl, and they ran away together, leaving Austin behind. He didn’t take it well and transferred his feelings of abandonment and betrayal from his sister to gays and lesbians in general. There had been a few incidents with other kids at the center before, but this was the first time he’d ever gone off on a volunteer.

  “Then why didn’t he have a Big Brother already if he got along with the staff?” Tim asked.

  “He was abandoned by his actual sister. It took me a while to convince him the program would be good for him. A lot of wasted time as it turns out,” Dick added with a sigh.

  Tim felt a pang of guilt. “I could talk to him again, maybe? It would probably be good for him to see that an older, sibling-like figure wants to stick around whether they’re gay or not.”

  “I agree,” Dick said with a small smile. “But Austin’s already made it pretty clear that he’s not coming back here any time soon.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t take it personally.” Dick squeezed his shoulder. “Nothing about what happened was your fault.”

  Intellectually, Tim knew Dick was right. It didn’t really make him feel any better.

  “We can try again next time, okay?”

  My life is an endless series of next times.

  “Yeah, okay.” Tim took a deep breath. “By the way, I’m Catholic, white, my mom’s family is Polish, and my dad’s is from Ireland. Just in case there are any kids who have a problem with any of that.”

  Dick’s lips twitched. “I’m sure we can find you someone who doesn’t hate white Irish-Catholic Poles.”

  Disaster number two came in the form of Julius; a lanky mixed-race boy who lived with his father—who held three jobs and was almost never home—and his senile grandmother. They didn’t bond as quickly as he had with Austin, but after a few afternoons spent together, Julius slowly started to open up, telling Tim about how hard it was to be at home alone with an old woman who kept confusing him with her son or her dead husband. He told Tim about his girlfriend and how he used to spend most of his time at her house before her father caught them doing what Julius called making out, but Tim suspected was probably a lot more, and forbade them from seeing each other. After that, he’d started coming to the center on his own just to get away from his house. Tim opened up in return, telling Julius about his own need to escape his home to put some distance between himself and his mother; he even talked a bit about his own romantic troubles. He’d thought things were going well between them right up until the day when something Tim said convinced Julius to steal his father’s car and run away with his girlfriend—something Julius very helpfully explained in the note he’d left behind for his father.

  The conversation he had with Dick after the police left ended up being a lot less comforting and apologetic than the one they’d had after Austin.

  “Out of all the people who volunteered here, I didn’t think I needed to tell you to watch what you say to these kids,” Dick said, his posture radiating disappointment. Tim could barely meet his eyes.

  You shouldn’t have to. I know better.

  “You’ve told me enough about the centers you used to volunteer at for me to get an idea of what kind of kids you’re used to dealing with, but just because our kids aren’t from the poorest parts of the city doesn’t mean they don’t have problems. Abuse and neglect don’t give a crap about the poverty line, and kids with nice clothes and shoes that fit can still have hard lives. Every single child who comes here deserves our best.”

  Tim flushed with shame as he remembered his thoughts when he’d first come to the center, how close he had come to writing these kids off. He’d only been volunteering for three weeks, but he already knew how special this place could be. He’d seen it a dozen times, how a kid could be out on the sidewalk looking like they had cement blocks tied to their shoulders, but the moment they came through the doors, that invisible weight evaporated. Tim had felt something similar himself too. The past weeks with Julius reminded h
im why he’d gone to college in the first place.

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

  Dick kept up the stern glare for a while longer before letting out a loud sigh and sinking back in his chair.

  “Do you have any idea what you even said to him that made him think to steal a car and take off with his girlfriend?” Dick asked, sounding curious instead of accusing.

  “I have no idea,” Tim said. “The only thing I can think of is when I told him about moving here from New York to put some distance between me and my family, but I was talking about going to college. I never said anything about running away. He never even said anything about wanting to run away. I knew he was upset about not being able to see his girlfriend, but I swear if he’d even hinted he was going to do this, I would have tried to talk him out of it.”

  “Well,” Dick said, “I guess I can’t exactly stay mad at you for something you don’t even know you did. Just try to be careful in the future, okay? And not just because it looks bad to have cops showing up to ask questions about our volunteers inspiring teenagers to commit felonies.”

  If Tim had been standing, he would have collapsed with relief.

  He’s not kicking me out.

  “Okay. I promise.”

  They sat together for the next few minutes with only the sound of the air-conditioning system kicking on to break the silence.

  “Do you think Julius will be okay?” Tim asked suddenly.

  “I’m sure the cops will find him,” Dick said immediately as if he’d been waiting for the question. “If he doesn’t come back on his own. Running away with a girl gets a lot less romantic when you’re fourteen years old with twenty dollars to your name.”

  “God, I hope so.” Tim didn’t think he needed to say more. He was sure Dick knew as well as he did all the ways kids could earn money on the streets if they were desperate enough or thought they were desperate enough.

  “Why don’t you go home?” Dick suggested. “It’s been a pretty stressful day, and I doubt hanging around here with nothing to do is doing anything good for you.”

  Tim’s kneejerk reaction was to refuse to go anywhere until he heard something about Julius, but he knew how unrealistic that was. Even if the cops found him and took him home that night, they weren’t exactly going to call the center and tell them.

  “Yeah, okay. You’ll call me if you hear anything, right?”

  “It’ll be the first thing I do after I find out.”

  “Thanks, Dick.”

  “You’re welcome. Now get out of here and get some sleep.”

  Tim did so, and three days later Dick called to tell him Julius and his girlfriend had been picked up in Cedar Rapids, of all places, after they’d tried to book a hotel room with the girlfriend’s laughably bad fake ID. Julius’s father wasn’t pressing charges for the theft, but he did send Julius to stay with some extended family out on a farm in Nebraska, probably hoping some hard labor would be a more effective punishment than getting thrown in juvie. Which, while the news was a great relief to Tim, meant he was out another Little Brother.

  “Are you sure you want to try another one so soon?” Dick’s tinny voice came through Tim’s phone. The connection sucked—cell-phone-to-cell-phone calls always sounded awful on his phone—but the bad quality did nothing to disguise Dick’s obvious concern. “You could take a break. There might even be some slots open with some of the younger kids in a few weeks.”

  “No.” Tim gripped his phone so tightly he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear the screen crack. “No, I don’t want to wait. I…I’ll do better, I promise.”

  If I don’t do this now, I’ll be right back where I was last month, and I have no idea if I’ll be able to drag myself out of it again. Please don’t take this away from me.

  “It’s not about you doing better,” Dick said. “We always make volunteers wait a week or two before moving onto another Little Brother or Sister when they’ve spent a lot of time with their last one. It’s for the kids as much as the volunteers. It doesn’t do anybody any good for new kids to be judged against the old ones.”

  “I wouldn’t do that! I can separate Julius from whoever I get next. Honestly, I’d kinda like to forget about what happened anyway, you know?” he added with a weak chuckle.

  It wasn’t even a lie, not really. Tim would love to forget about his screwup with Julius, but he knew he’d be obsessing over it for a while. Something he’d have to keep from Dick if he didn’t want to go back to empty nights of drinking cough syrup and ignoring his mother’s calls.

  A loud burst of static came through the phone, and Tim assumed it was one of Dick’s loud, heaving sighs.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m taking you at your word here. Don’t make me regret it.”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  Another burst of static. “We’ve got a new kid coming in tomorrow; never been to a center before, and he’s kinda nervous about it. His name’s Connor, and his dad is a friend of my ex-wife, so if anything happens with him, I’m gonna be hearing about it until the sun explodes. Are you absolutely sure you can handle this?”

  Tim didn’t even bristle—too much—at Dick’s sharp tone. Talking with or about his ex-wife was pretty much the only thing that could consistently drag his usually cheerful boss into a surly mood. As much as he’d been brought up not to believe in divorce, he couldn’t help thinking this was one marriage better off dead.

  “I’m sure,” Tim said, nodding even though Dick couldn’t see through the phone. “I can do this. No problem.”

  God, if you’re there, please don’t let me be lying.

  Chapter Five

  It ended up being a few more days before Spencer could get a free afternoon. Days he spent making the lives of all the idiots stupid enough to get detention with him a living hell. When he wasn’t dealing with detentions, he could be found obsessively checking his phone to make sure the Spaces Open hadn’t been changed to a Lost Your Chance, Loser. It hadn’t, and when the impossible happened and the entire freshman population of Laurence Tureaud High managed to get through an entire day without being assholes, Spencer snatched Connor up the second he got home and marched him downtown.

  Spencer had never been to a youth center before, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit disappointed when they got there. Sure, it seemed just as nice as the pictures on the website, but with a name like the Michael Crichton Memorial Youth Center he’d kind of been hoping for a little bit of branding. It wasn’t like he was expecting a giant, animatronic T-Rex in the lobby or anything, but maybe a Jurassic Park logo on the doors, or even just a few prints from some of the guy’s movies on the wall would have been pretty cool.

  Instead, the center was just a building that looked like a slightly cleaner version of the school he taught at but with no lockers, a staff that actually seemed like they wanted to be there, and a very nice receptionist who seemed pleasantly surprised Spencer had actually come in with Connor. There was a bit of a wait as she gathered up a few forms they usually had the kids take home for him to sign, but after the paperwork was taken care of, they were directed to the center’s cafeteria to wait for Connor’s new Big Brother to show up. They didn’t even have to talk to Dick, which was a relief. There were few things more uncomfortable than trying to make small talk with the ex-husband of his only friend for five hundred miles.

  It seemed a bit weird, though, to be meeting this guy in a cafeteria instead of an office or something, especially when they actually got there and saw how crowded it was. The room was about the same size as the lunchroom back at school, only with smaller tables, and instead of a kitchen, it sported a small bar-like area in the back covered with shrink-wrapped sandwiches on small paper plates laid out for the taking. Spencer held back a grimace and tried not to think too hard about how long they might have been sitting there.

  “You want a sandwich?” he asked.

  Please say no.

  Connor s
hook his head, but Spencer’s relief died a second later when he noticed how tense his kid was.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  Two teenagers, a white boy and a black girl, who both seemed to be about sixteen, walked by laughing loudly, and Connor took a hurried step closer to Spencer.

  “Not really,” he said quietly. “Can we go, please?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Connor’s eyes darted around the room. “I just wanna go home.”

  After the other night’s panic attack, Spencer’s first instinct was to bundle his kid up and run out of the building and away from whatever was causing him so much distress. It was an instinct he fought. One of the hardest lessons he’d had to learn as a parent was doing what his kid wanted wasn’t always what was best for him. Which, in hindsight, seemed kind of obvious, but he’d had to learn that lesson at the same time as he’d been railing against how unfair it was that his parents wouldn’t do everything he wanted. He hadn’t been able to believe he knew better than Connor without also admitting his parents might know better than him, and it took him a lot longer than it should have for him to be okay with putting his kid through uncomfortable situations that would benefit him in the long run.

  “We’re not going anywhere unless you give me a reason,” he said.

  Connor made a frustrated noise. “There’s too many people here, okay? And I don’t know any of them, and it’s freaking me out.”

  Ah, social anxiety; my ancient nemesis, we meet again.

  Spencer squeezed his shoulder. “I know it’s nerve-wracking, but you don’t need to talk to any of them. We’re only here to talk to—” Oh God, I forgot his name. “—one person, and that’s it. That’s not so bad, right?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m five,” Connor snapped.

  Signs of life. That’s encouraging.

  “Are you sure?” Spencer tilted his head. “Because it seems to be helping. If you want, you could sit in my lap until—” It started with a T, didn’t it? “—your new friend gets here, and I can read you a story. I promise I’ll do my best to give the characters different voices,” he added, singsonging the last few words.